Good evening everyone, all my friends and the general public are cordially invited to tomorrow's CRIME MEETING at the Angel Nunez Auditorium at 6:00 PM. Please make an effort to be there and bring five more friends with you. I need all you guys to come out and express your concerns and the love of your beautiful hometown. Together, we can come up with a solution. Remember SI SE PUEDE........................ In God we trust. Thanks and goodnight.

The meeting was well attended and most, if not all, who were in attendance vented their frustrations with the current policing activities as crime is on the rise and many cases are just unsolved, forgotten or even worse, the files are lost. Those who took the stand to publicly express their concerns explained matters such as selling of drugs, prostitution, robberies and burglaries, forming more neighborhood watches and getting more police officers for the island, to name a few.

It's great that the Mayor is committing to additional police officers...

I would argue however (as would many) that the whole method of assigning officers to districts needs to be changed. Officers serving San Pedro should BE from San Pedro. Over the years various groups have lobbied for "better police barracks" on the island. My reply to that is that the island should not NEED police barracks, as at the end of their shift, officers should return to their HOMES on the island on which they serve. Officers children should go to the same schools as the children of those they serve. Officers NEED to have roots and a vested interest in the community. THEN you might see some change. This should be a goal as well as simply increasing the #'s of officers on the island.

Have you seen how many San Pedro residents are signed up to be police officers, soldiers and firemen? Very, very few.

Our officers will only be able to afford to have a vested interest in this community when we make it so that they can have their families here, make it so that the schools can accommodate their kids etc.

Jeff - You are so right. A couple of years ago I wrote a letter to the editor of the newspapers and people scoffed at me. The officers must have a vested interest in the community they are responsible to protect.It was a great meeting - I couldn't understand the people who said they were disappointed in the turn out. I thought it was great.I wish Adian had been there to moderate. The police were w-a-y too defensive.If OC Robinson had done a slide show outlining her proposals for improving things instead of the very erroneous statistics she showed she would have received more respect. I was surprised by her surly attitude and the fact that every plan they have for improving the force had to be coached out of them one by one.I admire Mayor Danny very much - he does get things done.

The OC is a woman in a mans world. The very nature of her business in dealing with Men who lets face it feel superior to her in every way (other cops and criminals).

If she ever wants her career to move forward, criticizing the Police Department is not going to be an advantage.

Please keep in mind that I don't disagree with much of what was said at the meeting but some of the blame needs to be squarely placed on our community and the Elected officials who have done nothing over the past 5 years as crime has escalated to this point.

with Money solutions are simple. Changing laws not so much (as evidenced by the fact that we can't even implement a manifest for boats after 5 years).

Anyway as usual we are seeing some changes and I expect that we will see more changes over the next few weeks but, this is what happens every year. It will be very interesting to see if the community of SP jumps on board to make this a long term solution and not just another band aid on an otherwise festering wound.